OGT DAILY Day One Hundred and Ninety Seven LEAVING HOME

Leaving home is never easy.   Even if you are up at 5:00 am to put the coffee on and make sure the trash is in the closed barrel so the raccoons don't spread it all over the yard.  Even if you have made up the bed and put flowers in the room of the person who is house sitting and checked all the fuses and the water level of the plants and the fish tank.   Leaving is never easy.  There is the New York Times to read with all its excitement and fuss and nonsense and tragedy - Anthony Scara-who?  There are the piles of magazines in the bathroom to read with articles about dim-sum in Queens and music in Prospect Park and intersex children in the Dominican Republic.   I could stay in my downstairs bathroom for days and days, but there is always so much to pack.  Do I bring a one piece or a two piece or both? What about sheets and towels and extra bug spray?  Then there are the projects: computer, beach reading, academic reading, writing project binder which weighs 5 lbs, fiddle, weaving project, felting project, knitting - check!   Because of course I'm going to have time to do them all in between strolls on the beach.   Did I water the tomatoes?  Better transplant that rose clipping today.   Sort through the plastic bag collection in the pantry.  Fold all the piled up laundry.   Where is my bike helmet anyway?

Packing the car leaves me little room for my legs let alone a view out the back window.   Why do I always need so much?  Maybe I should just go back in and get one more sweatshirt.   Okay I'll just back out...and set the GPS for Rhode Island...Aaah only 3 1/2 hours....the sun is shining...95 stretches outward 120 miles to go...the radio's on....playing that forgotten song...fried clams ahead.....